Reliable, disaggregated data on violence against women and girls is essential to tracking progress, identifying gaps, and ensuring that policies and programmes are grounded in evidence. Spotlight Initiative invests in strengthening national data systems, results measurement frameworks, and the global evidence base on what works to end violence against women and girls.
Access to coordinated, survivor-centred services across health, justice, psychosocial, and legal sectors is essential to ensuring that women and girls who experience violence receive the support they need and that perpetrators are held accountable. Spotlight Initiative works to strengthen multi-sectoral response systems and the capacity of frontline institutions to deliver quality, integrated care.
Ending violence against women and girls requires transforming the social norms, attitudes, and power relations that drive it. Spotlight Initiative implements evidence-based, whole-of-society prevention approaches that engage a range of stakeholders, including communities, schools, traditional and religious leaders, men and boys, to promote gender-equitable norms and behaviours.
Robust legal and policy frameworks are foundational to advancing gender equality and eliminating violence against women and girls. When national legislation is aligned with international standards grounded in inclusive, consultative processes, and responsive to diverse communities, it strengthens protections against and response to violence against women and girls. Ensuring that laws and policies are implemented and upheld is critical to promoting tangible outcomes for women and girls.
Legislative reform is a critical pillar of efforts to end violence against women and girls, establishing enforceable protections, clarifying institutional responsibilities, and creating pathways to accountability for perpetrators. Spotlight Initiative works with governments, parliaments, civil society, and traditional institutions to support the development and strengthening of laws that protect women and girls.
Ending violence against women and girls requires a joined up UN system that is equipped to design and deliver comprehensive, rights-based, and evidence-informed programming. To support this, Spotlight Initiative continued investing in strengthening the technical capacities of UN Country and Regional Teams interested in developing Spotlight Initiative programmes.
Spotlight Initiative operationalizes a "One UN" approach under the leadership of Resident Coordinators at country level, coordinating 13 UN agencies across the Initiative to deliver coherent, multi-sectoral responses to ending violence against women and girls. This model of UN inter-agency collaboration is central to how the Initiative drives efficiency, reduces duplication, and strengthens collective accountability.
Since the publication of the foundational 2021 Making All Spaces Safe report, UNFPA has spearheaded the UN movement to define and address TFGBV, moving the global discourse from awareness to systemic action. Key achievements in 2025 include:
UNFPA is supporting the rollout of the UN statistical framework on femicide, with pilot initiatives in countries such as Pakistan and the Dominican Republic. This work places particular emphasis on strengthening Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) and medico-legal death investigation systems, recognizing their critical role in improving the accuracy, completeness, and use of data on femicide.
UNFPA continues to serve as the IASC-designated lead for Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies (GBViE) within the Protection Cluster: